Brown University receives $2 million to establish Visiting Professor of Islamic Humanities position

Islam is one of the most poorly understood religions in America – but a $2 million grant by the Aga Khan, the hereditary title given to the spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili branch of Islam, to Brown University aims to change that.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced the establishment of the Aga Khan Visiting Professor of Islamic Humanities at Brown University, in honor of Carnegie president Vartan Gregorian, who served as president of the university from 1989 to 1997. The center was made possible by a donation from Prince Karim Aga Khan IV and aims to help the University attract experts on Islam from a wide range of disciplines, including religion, history, anthropology and comparative literature.

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"We started the Aga Khan University in Pakistan some 32 years ago and it has grown into a truly international institution, with major campuses in Africa as well as in Asia, and with programmes in many fields. But right at the centre of its mission, from the very start, has been one principle goal: to help ensure the people living in the developing world are able to access international standards of health care."